Review: Autoboyography by Christina Lauren

Fangirl meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in this funny and poignant coming-of-age novel from New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren about two boys who fall in love in a writing class—one from a progressive family and the other from a conservative religious community.

Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.

But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.

It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.

Oh boy! This book has sneaked its way to my heart. I knew I’d like it (or I was hoping I would) but, oh my god, I wasn’t ready for this much perfection, Christina Lauren has written a true masterpiece. I’m still on the hype of this book and I just have no words, it’s incredibly cute, funny and relatable and I know a lot of kids out there might need a book like this for a little support.

Autoboyography is the story of, our very cute, full of hormones, and high school senior, Tanner, who moved from California to Utah three years ago which pushed him to wiggle his bi-sexuality back into the darkness… until he meets Sebastian Brother, the cutest, most untouchable, Mormon kid in town, but that doesn’t really matter to Tanner, or his heart, he finds himself falling head over heels for Sebastian, but that can’t really be the greatest idea.

If I had to choose a favorite character it would probably be Tanner, I think the fact that this book is written in his point of view was very special to me and him my #1. Since I was literally in his head reading his thoughts and seeing how nervous he felt or how giddy or pornographic his thoughts got… I loved every single word. I am a sucker for cute words, the way to my heart is pretty words and Christina Lauren wrote her way to my heart with Tanner’s thoughts.

This book also has a very big religious impact, Provo being a very Mormon town and Tanner being surrounded by a religion that doesn’t really accept his sexuality and Sebastian being such a Mormon prodigy, it causes him a bit of conflict throughout the book. I’m not truly a very religious person, I wasn’t raised going to church every week, my family is not really big on religion and I still enjoyed this book a lot and I think it can really teach us a little more about LDS and how it can have an impact on kids who might not be LDS kids but might be surrounded by the ideology a lot. I think it was a very fresh and light yet firm and informative take on religion.

I LOVE TANNER AND SEBASTIAN SO MUCH I CAN’T. Their story is just so… cute (please note the overused word cute on this review #sorrynotsorry, I need a thesaurus), as I said, it has a nice take on religion and I just… love their love so much it’s absolutely crazy. I did cry with this book (but then again when do I not), I physically felt it pull on my heartstrings and I loved it. 100%. I need to boy this book ASAP and you, reading this, need to as well. It’s just such a freaking good book! Definitely one of my all time favorites.

GAHHHHHHHHH! I’ve been dying to read this one. I mean with mentions of Fangirl and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in the summary…YES PLEASE! Great review. You just solidified my decision to read this one ASAP.